6.3. MegaPOV before POV-Ray™ 3.6

6.3.1. MegaPOV history

Here is the history of previous MegaPOV versions, listed for historical reasons and to
highlight the community character of this software.

6.3.1.1. 8 September 2004 - MegaPOV 1.1

MegaPOV 1.1 is an update to POV-Ray™ 3.6. Development of POV-Ray™ 3.6 took longer than expected so
MegaPOV 1.1 was delayed as well. We regret this but on the other hand MegaPOV 1.1 now also comes
with some useful new features:

Some of the patches from MegaPOV 1.0 are now included in the POV-Ray™ 3.6 update, and some have become obsolete because of changes
in POV-Ray™ 3.6. The parts concerning these changes have been removed from this manual, because they are no longer considered as
"patches". Here is an overview:

Option End_Row with value 1

UV mapping in torus object;

UV mapping in parametric object;

Fix for using splines in function;

Fix for smooth height_field.

6.3.1.2. 31 December 2002 - MegaPOV 1.0

MegaPOV 1.0 was a fresh start, based on the sources of POV-Ray™ 3.5. This means that not all features of MegaPOV 0.7
were implemented. Another consequence was that for several features the new syntax of POV-Ray™ 3.5 is
now used. Here is a list of added features:

Features in MegaPOV 0.7 that didn't make it in POV-Ray™ 3.5, but which are back in MegaPOV 1.0;

6.3.1.4. October 15, 2000 - MegaPOV 0.6a

Demo scene images are available on-line, so you can see what MegaPOV has to offer. They can be viewed at Smellenbergh's site. Click on the "Demos" link in the navigation bar on the left. Direct link is here.

Fixed a bug in the proximity patch. If no sample_weight vector was given it was filled with random values, giving different results for each rendering.

In isosurface statistics, max gradient is reported again

Fixed more memory leaks in isosurface

julia sqr and power (^) now allowed without version unofficial xx specifier: it is a legal keyword in POV-Ray™ 3.1

In the manual updated section 8.9 displace warp

In the manual corrected 9.20: the formula used is: Red*0.3+Green*0.59+Blue*0.11

In DoPostProcess() in postproc.c give an error if for some reason the input file could not be opened. Previously MegaPOV would crash.

density file is now positioned from 0 to 1 again. We changed that in 0.6 but obviously this was incorrect. It crashed MP often too. Files written by the df3 patch are now flipped so that the result is correct.

df3 in i_dat3d now works again. This was listed as fixed in MP 0.6 but only now in 0.6a this is really fixed!

Updated the displacement warp patch to MP+0.3.2. This adds the type keyword.

Fixed bug in transform when used like this:

transform { DeclaredMyTrans}

Fixed bug with photons+dispersion if no color_map specified for light_source

6.3.1.5. October 1, 2000 - MegaPOV 0.6

Spline identifiers can now be passed as macro parameters.

Added Mike Hough's updated uv_mapping (takes now all four corners) for bicubic_patches (8.6.4).

Added keep_data_file for post processing to allow continue (12).

Added filter all and transmit all for 24 bit images (9.2.11).

Added possibility to use phase and frequency keywords in an image_map (8.10).

by default, radiosity will not use perturbed surface normals. Add 'normals on' to the radiosity{} block in global_settings to enable this feature. This feature also now is now significantly faster and better than before.

fixed a bug related to slope_map that nobody ever reported and I never noticed (but it was really there)

6.3.1.22. March 9, 1999 - alpha 4 release

photon mapping

Going backwards in versions: used to be beta, now it's alpha. Actually, it's probably permanently stuck on alpha now. ;-) But I did increase the version number to 4.

Photon Mapping! Render real caustics! And yes, it's still called UVPov, but it's got a new splash screen!

Many (all?) of my bug fixes are now part of POV-Ray™ 3.1e (my custom compile does not contain all of the fixes found in POV-Ray™ 3.1e, however)

The POV-Team is currently working to add uv mapping to POV-Ray (version 3.5)! It will not be exactly the same as what you see here, but Chris has been talking to me about his changes to the implementation, and it's only going to get better. :-)

New conversion program: Poser OBJ to POV converter.

6.3.1.23. November 24, 1998

Fixed a bug so memory is freed correctly and POV shouldn't crash anymore.

I call this beta "3a" but I did not rename anything in the ZIP files... just a new executable and a new copy of mesh.c in the sources.

6.3.1.24. November 22, 1998

I'm working on a new feature, parallel light rays for cylinder lights.

Change in syntax of "uv_mapping". The old rule was that you needed to specify "uv_mapping" as the first modifier. Now the rule is that you can only specify "uv_mapping" if the object does not yet have a texture.

Fixed uv mapping to work with CSG objects.

New website layout.

6.3.1.25. Old News

My patched version of POV is ready for download. Get it here!

Many of these changes are also part of the SuperPatch by Ron Parker, available at Twyst's PatchStation.

The primary reason for most of these changes is to give POV-Ray the same functionality as some high-end software packages (like 3D Studio). Thomas Baier has released a 3DS-to-POV converter that works only with this version of POV-Ray. You can find out more about it at his page. This utility (which is still in beta) does an excellent job of converting 3DS scenes into POV-Ray scenes, with lights, cameras, and textures intact! It also outputs to Moray MDL/UDO formats. Note: This was designed for the POV 3.02 version of my patch, but it should work with the SuperPatch and with my new version.